There are two sides to that story. Sure, those three games that Columbus have in hand on the Impact give them more opportunities to pick up valuable points. But they also mean that the schedule is, to say the least, unkind with the playoffs approaching.

“They’ve got to figure out how they’re going to manage minutes, injuries,” Marsch said. “We'll see how, physically, they come out of [Wednesday night]. We've been there, so it's not like we feel sorry for these teams. We have to be prepared for different players and what it might look like, and address that and make sure that we have ourselves ready.”

For Columbus, this Saturday’s game against Montreal (7:30 pm ET, stream on MLS LIVE) will be the sixth of seven games scheduled in 22 days, which is not unlike the situation D.C. were facing as they made their way to Stade Saputo last weekend.

In the end, D.C. head coach Ben Olsen, thinking of the other two games in the next seven days, opted not to start the likes of Dwayne de Rosario and Chris Pontius, and the 3-0 win Montreal picked up then was achieved with relative ease.

The risk the Impact could run by believing the Crew could take such a gamble is too big for Marsch not to notice it.

“We thought that D.C. would have heavy legs, and the first 25 minutes, they were on top of the game and we looked like the team that had played a bunch of games,” Marsch admitted. “It can work both ways.”